Found
by lilMissWombat
Summary: Negan and Rick lived together before but was seperated by the outbreak. For almost two years they have believed eachother to be dead, until they finally reunite in Terminus as prisoners.
1. Chapter 1 - Screw it

p class="MsoNormal"Chapter 1 – screw it/p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal"He barely saw which way he was walking, as he stumbled through the forest, brushing away the branches and occasional insect that would fly his way. More than once he would trip over hidden roots, fall to his knees only to push himself up again and continue walking. He didn't even know why he bothered. He could just fall to his knees and lay there, still and waiting for the biters to find him. Make an end to it. He guessed he was just being stubborn at this point. After having survived the hell that this world had become he had become oddly attached to the idea of keep living./p  
p class="MsoNormal"He continued forward in a daze, his mind shifting from one memory to the next. From one terrible thought to the next. He had lost them all. Every single person who had once meant anything to him. Dead or gone to who knows where, which these days are the same as death. His mother, former students, old colleagues. Even that shithead to Garret Carter, the asshole principle of his previous workplace, probably walked the earth somewhere. Negan doubted that dumb shit had made it very far in this new world nor that he had the guts to actually stay in it./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Try as he may, but Negan could not help but let his mind wander to the thoughts and memories he least wanted to think about. Almost two fucking years had passed since the world had gone to shit and not one single day had gone by without Negan thinking of the two people, whom he had cared most for in this world. In the beginning he had hoped they had survived. Hell, he had even prayed to whoever God wanted to listen. But as the days had turned into weeks and then month that hope had slowly disappeared. When the first year had gone by, almost without him noticing, the hope he had once clung to so desperately had turned into despair. Images of the two being torn apart by biters, gunned down by thieves or kicked around by madmen had slowly begun to fill his dreams and soon they would start to invade his waken hours as well. He had no idea how he had continued living after he lost hope. The only thing that had made him survive that first year was desperate hope that he would one day see them again. After that was gone something had shattered inside of him. He guessed surviving had simply become a bad habit at that point./p  
p class="MsoNormal"After he had accepted that he had lost them forever, he had found other people, who would eventually die before he would him other people. The cycle repeated itself continuously. Until it didn't. Slowly, the people had begun to survive and as more joined them, the stronger they became. Seeing how the people around them somehow kept breathing lifted him out of the fog he had been in and he had done his damn best at keeping it that way. He had created a massive following, founded a place for them to live, included more surviving communities into his fold. He had protected them all. He had kept them all safe. But even as he had stood there in his office with the baseball bat by his side, looking out at the men who either feared or respected the hell out of him, he felt nothing. Nothing but a hollow emptiness inside. The question had lingered in his head; So what? He had managed to keep all these people alive for this long, but what was it all for, when he hadn't been able to keep the people he cared most about alive./p  
p class="MsoNormal"And so he had left. One silent night he had simply taken off his leather jacket and the red cloth he usually wrapped around his neck. He felt as if he was letting go of the brutal persona he had so careful build around himself, as he left the bat behind him on the desk and snuck out of the Sanctuary. He had brought no weapons and had nothing else but the clothes on his back. He did not want to give himself any chance of surviving this time./p  
p class="MsoNormal"He jumpstarted one of the cars he kept nearby the sanctuary, full of gas and ready to go in case he needed an escape plan. He drove south and continued driving through the night and oncoming day, until the gas finally run out. He thought of nothing in particular as he made his way down the map, closer to the home he had left behind. He briefly remembered how he had kissed Rick goodbye that early morning, when he had last seen him. Rick had still been half asleep, naked in their bed, as Negan snuck out of the house and drove to the airport. He had gone to visit his mother, who had suddenly fallen very ill. He had thought it was the last time he would see her, and he had been right. He just hadn't counted on it being the last time he would see Rick as well. He had not even had the time to say goodbye to Carl. The kid had been at his mother's, when he had left them. Lori had always been a kind woman. He remembered Rick had told him that she had reacted so clear-headed and with nothing but kindness, when Rick had told him about Negan. Their marriage was already over, when Negan had met Rick and Lori had almost seemed relieved that Rick had moved on so quickly. The fact that he had moved on with a man had caused some stirrup in the beginning but had quickly accepted the new presence in Rick's and, more importantly, Carl's life. Yes, she had been a good woman. Too good for what this world had become. Surely, she could not have kept herself safe nor less Carl. Negan could only hope that death had come quick to both of them./p  
p class="MsoNormal"When the car ran out of gas, Negan continued on foot. He had not eaten since he left the compound, nor had he had a drop of water. The sun baked down on him as he continued walking, increasingly unsure on his legs. He could hear the monsters behind him, but he did not care. On his drive down towards south, towards home, he had thought to himself what would be the thing that finally undid him. Biters or humans? So long he had tried to survive both that the thought almost humored him. He had a suspicion it would be the biters but still, as more of them followed behind him, he continued walking. He was not exactly going to make it easy for them. In spite of the weakness he felt by lack of substance, he still had a bit more go in him. Encouraged by the thought that each step took him just a little bit closer to home, he kept stumbling forward./p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 6;" /span***/p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal"It was late on the second day, when Negan finally gave in. He did not know for how long he had been walking while the growls behind him became louder. It felt like an eternity and his legs burned, while his dry tongue weighed heavy in his mouth. He did not know what made him stop. Perhaps it was his legs, his exhaustion, his desperate need for water. Or perhaps he had simply had enough./p  
p class="MsoNormal"At some point he had moved from the forest to road and he now feel heavily down onto his knees. He had had enough. He did not look at the biters as they slowly come closer. He simply lowered himself down onto the ground and faced up towards the sky. He closed his eyes and let his mind fill with the many wonderful memories he had of Rick and him. Some of them included Carl, while others only held the two of them. He had loved that kid like he was his own and Rick… Negan had never believed in true love – hell he did not even think he had believed in love – before he met Rick. It had been fucking embarrassing as all hell to discover the kind of power Rick had had over him and exactly how much Negan had been willing to do for him. He gasped as he finally, after almost two years, let himself experience that feeling again of loving someone so deeply. He felt his heart breaking in two by having lost someone so sweet. Never in a million years had he imagined that he could have someone like Rick Grimes in his life, but for a short time he had. A small smile formed around his lips out of gratitude for those few years the two had shared, as the biters came closer. He kept his closed, as he tipped his head to the side, exposing his neck and arteries even more. He hoped it would be quick./p  
p class="MsoNormal"A noise suddenly started to appear behind the growls of the biters around him and gunshots suddenly started to explode through the air. Negan's eyes opened quickly and when he saw the biters around him, his body reacted out of instant. He showed the hands of death away from him and knocked a few to the ground, as a car quickly made his way towards him. The car ran over a few of the rotten ones and a brown-haired guy hang out of the side of the window, shooting a few of the biters that had come too close to Negan./p  
p class="MsoNormal"When they were all dead, Negan felt a sense of regret and frowned at the men who came out of the car. One guy was in the front and carefully made his way towards him. The two starred at each other for a while, before the other man put away his gun and reached out his hand. Negan apparently did not seem like much of a threat as he stood there, obviously unarmed and deeply fatigued. "My name is Gareth", the man said. "Looks like you could need some help"./p 


	2. Chapter 2 - Found him

p class="MsoNormal"Negan did not know how much time had passed, since they had taken him. He did not much care to be honest. He had tried to attack one of them, when they had showed him into the empty metal container. He had tried to coerce them into shooting him and making his death quick, but it had only earned him a good blow to the head with the butt of a gun. I guess they had other plans for him./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanHe had barely raised his head, when a whole group of people had been shoved into the container with him. They were a mixture of men and women. In the beginning, they had tried to coerce him to talk. They wanted to know how long he had been there and if he knows what they wanted with them. He had ignored them. They would all die soon enough anyway. And if they didn't, good for them. They would get to live another shitty day before arriving at another shitty end. They tried to make him eat the small amounts of bread and drink some of the water their captors brought to them and he would now and then give in. Self-preservation was a strong force and one that he could not always resist./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanHe had had his eyes closed, on the brink of on exhausted sleep, when the door of the container opened once more. He could hear another group of people entering before the door closed behind them. More people waiting for their death, Negan thought to himself before he heard the voice of the Asian man. It was just one word and at first he was sure he had heard wrong. But then he had heard his voice./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"You're here", said the soft voice that he knew so well, and Negan's eyes flew open. From the corner of the container he starred at the man that had filled his thoughts more than ever these last few days./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"You're here", Rick repeated, and Negan saw a small smile appear around the man's lips. The man he had left behind had been clean shaven, his hair short and almost always neatly combed. Rick had always cared much about his appearance and his clothes had always been clean and neatly fitted to his body. The man standing in front of him looked completely different. The beard was long and unkept with streak of gray in it. His hair was a filthy mess at the top of his head and he had sweat and dirt clinging to every part of his skin. The clothes hang too much on his small frame and the look in his eyes… that look was one Negan had never seen before. The softness in them had disappeared and been replaced with one of steel. They held a warning to all those may want to screw with him. Rick Grimes looked like a man who had gone through hell and back. He looked like someone Negan hardly knew but nevertheless, the man standing in front of him was still Rick./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe people of the group stepped closer to him and a look of recognition passed between them. Rick moved his gaze further back and stopped on the tall red-haired man, the Latino woman and the fat guy. Negan was still half-concealed in the dark corner and starred in bewilderment as the smaller figure behind Rick shifted and Carl briefly stepped out into the light. He immediately recognized the kid, although it seemed like he had grown so much since Negan last saw him. His heart nearly stopped in his chest by the sight of Rick's old police hat on him. Oh, how Negan had teased Rick with that hat./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"They're our friends", one of the woman of the group said, gesturing to the red-haired, the Latino and the fat guy. "They helped save us"/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Yeah. Now they are friends of ours", a long-haired guy standing behind Rick said./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanNegan slowly rose to his feet and every gaze in the container suddenly fell on him. He leaned against the side of the container to not have his weak legs give in beneath him and stumbled forwards, until a small crack of sunlight could shine on his face. He saw Rick's eyes widen, when the two locked eyes and he heard Carl gasp, as he saw Negan as well./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Rick", Negan mumbled through his dry mouth and stumbled forward. Rick caught him and placed his rough hands around Negan's bearded face. Pure shock and adrenalin shined out from his eyes. That steely look from before was gone and Negan felt his legs weekly giving in beneath him as he sank into his loved one's embrace. He could feel Rick's heavy heartbeat beneath their layers of clothes and Negan felt like he could finally breathe. It felt like he had for two years been slowly drowning, gasping for a breath of air. Rick Grimes was that air and Negan could finally breathe again./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"How…", he heard the other man say and gently pushed him away to look at him. Negan was not ready to let go. "How are you here?"/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"I drove", Negan mumbled and placed a hand gently on the left side of Rick's face. "And then I walked"./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanNegan felt a presence coming closer and he looked to his right and saw Carl. The kid looked at him with caution, almost as if he was too afraid to believe Negan was actually there. "Hey Kid", Negan mumbled and stretched out a hand towards Carl. Carl collapsed on the floor right next to them and hugged Negan tightly. They all simply sat there for a long time, holding each other in their arms. Negan briefly wondered how they might look like from the other's perspective and what Rick's group might be thinking of them. Had he told them about them about Negan? Negan did not really care. Rick was alive and so was Carl. They had returned from the death and he was now holding them in his arms. Maybe he was dreaming, he thought. If so, he never wanted to wake up./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanRick finally let go of both of them. Negan was not ready to let go. He could barely stand so Rick and Carl helped him back onto his feet. He was so weak after not having eaten for days and he cursed himself now not for doing it. Rick and Carl were with him, but their troubles were not over. They had to get out of here, live to fight another day and he needed to help them. He needed to get them out of here./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanHe heard the red-haired man cough behind him and mumble to himself, as he turned away from the group; "To find someone only to lose them again. What a fucked up world"./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;""No", Rick said and shook his head, looking at the red-haired man. Negan saw a small smile forming around the man's lips and a harsh look in his eyes. A mix of both fear and pride ran through his body and Carl looked up at him with a soft smile. Rick let his harsh gaze land on every single one of the people inside the container and his gaze lingered on Negan and Carl, whom was still by his side helping Negan stand upright./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"They are going to feel pretty when they found out", Rick said, let go of Negan and went to the door of the container to look out a small crack into the yard outside./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Find out what?", the red-haired man asked and stepped forward./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanRick looked back at him with a look of steel in his deep blue eyes. "They are fucking with the wrong people", he said and a shudder ran through Negan's body. Seems like Rick did not need Negan to save him after all./p 


	3. Chapter 3 - Fuck you

p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"Rick had quickly gotten everyone started on making weapons with whatever they could find around them. One woman was tearing her belt to pieces while Rick was busy filling away the wooden frame with a necklace to tear off a sharp piece. Negan had copied one of the woman and made a weapon out of his belt as well. He was probably too weak to offer much help but he would be damned if we would just sit by while Rick and Carl fought their way out of here. Carl was sitting close to him. He had not left his side, since their first embrace./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"All around him the rest of Rick's group, which seemed to have been separated for a while, tried to catch up. A brown woman asked about someone called Tyrese and the name Beth was mentioned more than once. Carl had quietly asked him where Negan had been the last couple of years and Negan had told him a little. Rick had not asked him. He seemed too focused on getting himself and the people around him out of this shitty situation they were in. Negan was relieved. They could catch up later. They first had to get out here./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"It was clear that Rick cared a lot about these people around him, his group. They seemed tightly woven like a family that had gone through some shit and survived some shit together. Negan thought of his own group and the people he had left behind. He could not say he had felt much of the same love for any of them./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;""All right. We got four of those pricks coming our way", Daryl said, who seemed to Rick's right hand. He had been keeping a look out from the door, while the others worked./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"Rick ripped off the piece of wood from the wooden frame and walked towards the rest. "You'll know what to do. Go for their eyes first. Then their throats". They all made themselves ready in front of the door/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;""Get your back to the world at either end of the cart. NOW!", a man's voice yelled outside. Rick briefly turned around and nodded to the others to get ready. His eyes lingered briefly on Negan, whom stood ready right behind him. Then a part of the roof above them opened up and the sunlight flooded the cart. A small canister was thrown down and the red-haired guy yelled for them all to move before teargas spread out through the container./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"Negan tried to keep his sight on Rick and the kid as they all scrambled away from the teargas, but the air soon became too clouded. He yelled Rick's name, before he coughed and fell to the ground. He heard a strange man yelling loudly. Through the fog, Negan could see how Rick was being pulled outside. The man who grabbed him had a long cut on the side of his face. Negan yelled out and stormed towards them to get the man off of Rick. Another man swung a baseball bat towards Negan's head and Negan thought about the barbed baseball bat he had left back at the sanctuary. Oh, how he wanted to show these assholes a lesson./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"The wind was knocked out of him, as the baseball hat hit him in the stomach and he could hear one of his ribs give in. Three more figures were pulled outside and then the door was shut again. The cart was still filled with teargas and the rest of the group lay around coughing, as the air very slowly started to clear out./p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"span style="mso-tab-count: 5;" /span***/p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal"Negan had raged and slammed against the walls of the container, when the air had cleared up enough for him to fill his lungs. He had been on his way to make his fists crack, when the brown woman with the dreadlocks, Michonne, had stopped him./p  
p class="MsoNormal""Hey!", she had said and grabbed his hands. He had fought against her but she had shaken him roughly. "Look at me. Look at me!" She had send him a harsh look. "Rick will find out of this. Okay? He always does", she said. The strong conviction in her eyes somehow made him calmer. Rick had changed in the two years they had been apart. Who knew what kind of shit he had had to drag himself and Carl through? He would survive this too. He had to./p  
p class="MsoNormal""Rick will get back here", Michonne said and let Negan go, when she saw that he was calmed down enough. She looked back at the rest of the people in the container. "They all will". Her gaze lingered on the white woman in the group, whom had seemed attached to the Asian guy that had been taken as well. "We need to be ready when they do". The white woman nodded and Michonne looked back at Negan, whom nodded as well. He grabbed the belt that he had made into a blade and waited, while the rest continued improving and sharpening their weapons./p  
p class="MsoNormal"A lot of time passed with them sitting in silence, until a loud noise erupted outside. It sounded like someone had dropped off a bomb and soon after gunshot ripped through the air. Everyone briefly stopped what they were doing to listen, but then continued their work with even more eagerness than before. At a certain point they began to talk softly amongst each other. Negan did not listen but continued sharpening his weapon as in a daze with Carl by his side. A few words like 'the cure', 'what's next' made it through the fog he was in, but he ignored them all. All he thought about was Rick and how he had to get out of here and go him./p  
p class="MsoNormal"One of his right ribs still hurt, where the baseball bat had hit him. He did not know if it was broken or simply bruised, but it sure hurt like a son of a bitch. Still, the pain was nothing compared to the war that seemed to go on inside his head. The pictures flashing before his eyes neatly matched the war that he could her going on just outside these metal walls. Behind him the other's kept pestering the fat guy about some cure. He scoffed at the thought of them believing in such foolishness. There was no cure. This was their world now. He had known that from the moment he had taken down his first biter; Mrs. Lewmann, one of the nurses that had taken care of his mother. But Negan did not need these people to be smart. He just needed them to be strong enough to get the hell out of here with both Rick and Carl safe./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Negan felt a small hand on his arm and he looked at Carl. "Don't worry. My dad will come back". Negan smiled half-heartedly and nodded./p  
p class="MsoNormal"In that very moment, the sound of the lock on the door erupted through the container and they all stumbled to their feet. Carl helped Negan onto his feet and helped support his weight, as the door slid to the side and a glorious side appeared before them. Rick was bloodied up and had a fiery look in his eyes, as he yelled above the noise; "Come on! We fight to the fence!". He then turned to fire up the M4 on a group of approaching biters. Behind him Negan could see buildings on fire, blood on the ground and a horde of dead. Daryl and the other men who were taken were there as well, clearing up a path for them./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Negan could not help but feel a wide smile form around his lip and his chest swelled with pride. His man was a fucking badass./p 


	4. Chapter 4 - The Past

p class="MsoNormal"Rick looked up at Negan, whom looked down at him and the little girl he was holding in his arms with a mixture of shock and bewilderment. His jaw closed tightly together when he saw the brief look of hurt in Negan's eyes, before Negan finally broke out into a soft smile and began talking to Judith in a baby voice, Rick had never heard from the tough man before. Rick could still not believe his own eyes and he had at first been sure that he had been seeing things./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Maybe the events the last couple of days had left him more messed up in the head than he had realized, and he had gone crazy again, just like back at the prison. It was only when Carl had run forward and embraced the man that Rick had dared believe that what he was seeing was real. He had at first kept hoping. Negan had always been a tough son of bitch, even before the world had changed. Perhaps that had been one of the things that had initially attracted Rick to him. And when he had later learned that the man actually had a heart of gold beneath that harsh exterior of his, it only deepened his affection for him. His marriage with Lori had been reduced to nothing but a piece of paper, when he started falling in love with Negan and he quickly ended it with Lori, when he discovered that those feelings were not going away. Lori deserved better than a husband who cheated behind his back. With another man no less./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Discovering that he was in fact gay had been quite a shock for Rick. He had never felt particularly attracted to anyone in his life until Lori, whom was kind, warm and funny. He know knew that what he felt for her was not love in the traditional sense of the world. The two of them had been far better off if they had remained friends, as they after their divorce had become again. But if they had never gotten married, Carl would never have been born and to imagine his world without his son in it felt the same as imagining it without air. Not possible./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Negan had taken to his son immediately and – to Rick's surprise – so had Carl to Negan. The two seemed to share an understanding from the moment they met, when Carl was just seven years old, that Rick never fully understood. He would sometimes be jealous of the connection the two had with each other, but then reminded himself that despite it all, he was still Carl's father. Negan had never tried to overstep in that regard and Rick had appreciated it. He didn't think he would have been able to deal with another father figure in his son's life, even if that person was the man he loved./p  
p class="MsoNormal"For a few blessed years they had all been happy. Rick had slowly come to terms with his sexuality and Lori, being the warm-hearted understanding person, she was, had accepted Negan as a presence in their son's life. They had had a good life. But then everything happened. Rick can only vaguely remember how Negan had kissed him goodbye that early morning before taking a plane up north to go see his dying mother. How often had he not wished that he could back and beg Negan not to go. To beg him to stay. If only he had known, he would not have gone to work that day. He would not have gotten himself shot and end up in that hospital, separated from his family. If only he had known, he would have taken Negan, Lori and Carl and gone somewhere far away from everyone and everything. Run away as fast as he could./p  
p class="MsoNormal"Everything would have been so different right now if only so many things hadn't happened. If he hadn't gotten shot… If Negan hadn't left… It sometimes made him dizzy to think about how such small changes can lead to your entire world shifting beneath your feet./p  
p class="MsoNormal"When he had reunited with Carl and Lori, it had felt like his heart would burst with relief. The sex with Lori had been brief and more about comfort than anything else. It had almost been like falling into an old habit – one you knew you probably shouldn't do but for some reason you do it anyway. He had hoped Negan was alive, but he also could not ignore the voice inside his head saying that he was lying to himself. To have not only his son and good friend and ex-wife survive but the person he loved? That was asking too much. Lori had seen the pain he was in and she had confirmed him in one of the only ways she knew how; by distracting him. Just for a moment./p  
p class="MsoNormal"It had not happened more than once but somehow Shane found out. Lori and Shane had started dating shortly before the outbreak and although it had been odd to say the least for Rick to see his partner and ex-wife getting along, he had accepted it. After all, he had been the one leaving Lori for another man. He could not really object to her life choices, as long as they did not affect Carl. Rick still remembered the night on the farm, when Shane had come to him. He confronted him about Rick and Lori and things had evolved from there. He did not know whether Judith was truly his, but he figured it did not matter. She was Lori's child and therefor, she was his./p  
p class="MsoNormal"All those thoughts and memories ran through his mind, as he looked up at Negan. Negan raised his gaze and a look of understanding passed between them. "She's beautiful", he said and Rick could see that he meant it, but the look of betrayal Negan had so briefly send him just moments ago would haunt his dreams for a long time./p 


End file.
